


AKA Aftermath

by neednot



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Female Friendship, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Kilgrave later, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-07 23:37:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5474759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neednot/pseuds/neednot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trish has always been the one who needs saving. Jessica's always been the one who never needed anybody. <br/>Pre-series, after Jess leaves Kilgrave the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Trish and Jessica, Jessica and Trish. It always comes around to them.

She doesn't want anyone to see her. She broke the lock on her bedroom door out of frustration but Trish is kind enough to knock before she enters.

Trish is too damn kind to her, and that's what burns Jessica the most. She doesn't deserve kindness, or friendship, or Trish's sympathetic looks or her pity or any of it. She killed a woman, she did awful things and no matter how many damn times Trish says  _hey look it wasn't your fault none of it is your fault_ Jessica just doesn't believe her.

Trish tells her over, and over, and over.

Jessica doesn't believe her over, and over, and over.

She knows she's pushing Trish away. She should feel bad about that, but she doesn't. She doesn't really feel much anymore except guilt.

Trish was the one who found her, after. Jessica doesn't even remember dialing the phone. She doesn't remember seeing Kilgrave get hit. She remembers Trish showing up like some fucking blonde angel and whisking Jessica off to a land of hot showers and sleep.

God, Jessica could have slept for years, knowing he was dead.

Trish has tried to extract the story from her but so far it's been like pulling teeth with no anesthetic—painful, and usually results in Jessica screaming and reaching for a bottle.

She can see how reluctant Trish is to let her drink but if she drinks she forgets about his hands on her and how he made her enjoy his hands on her and  _smiling_.

She will be happy if she never smiles again.

But Trish coaxes small bits of truth out of her over time—his name, how she met him (trying to be a hero, goddammit), and the fact that yes, he is really dead she saw it he's dead  _he's not coming back Trish stop pushing_.

Trish pushes. It's what she does. Jessica would be grateful for it if she weren't so furious.

The first night she comes back she stays in the shower until it's cold and Trish knocks on the door, like some goddamn cliché.

"Jess?"

"Go away," Jessica calls, and she winces at the sound of Trish's retreating footsteps because at this point she can't tell if she really needs her to go away or not.

But then the footsteps come back.

"I won't come in," Trish says. "But I'm here, okay? Just on the other side of the door."

Jessica stifles a sob, because it's what she used to do for Trish when Trish insisted on hiding in her bathroom from her mother, when she didn't think Jessica could hear her sobbing late at night.

Jess eventually leaves the shower, wraps herself in one of the fluffiest towels she's ever used-of course Trish would have something nice like this-and walks out of the bathroom.

Trish has fallen asleep with her head against the wall, empty mug of fancy tea next to her, and Jessica allows a small ghost of a smile to creep across her face before she heads to the bedroom and fall asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Trish has always been the one who needs saving. Jessica's always been the one who never needed anybody." Trish tries to get Jessica to talk about Kilgrave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for mentions of Kilgrave.

She's never been good at making Jessica talk. Hell, she's only good at making people open up when it's on air, when they think someone else might be listening. 

But not Jessica. Jessica keeps all her secrets in a tightly clenched fist, because--Trish knows--secrets make her vulnerable and Jessica sees vulnerability as weakness. 

Trish wonders how much Jessica kept to herself before moving in with her and how much of it was because Dorothy would have sold Jessica's secrets in a second if she thought it would bring her better ratings. 

So Trish tries not to push Jess, because she knows how much  _she_ hated being pushed into talking, but after a week of trying to pry information out of her best friend she's about to throw the towel in out of frustration. 

"I don't know how to fix it if you won't tell me what's wrong!" she snaps. 

"I don't need you to fix it, Trish. He's dead," Jessica says, lips in a thin line and hand clutching a bottle of Wild Turkey. Her knuckles are white, and Trish knows she's restraining herself from either pouring the bottle down her throat or smashing it in her fist. 

"You still haven't told me who he is."

"You know his name, that's all that matters."

"I need to know what he did to you," Trish says. 

Jessica's face darkens. "Why the fuck would you need to know that?"

"So I can help."

"Jesus Trish, you should've been the superhero, not me." 

"Don't I know it," Trish says, but it's hollow and they both know she's lying. Trish has always been the one who needs saving. Jessica's always been the one who never needed anybody.

Except now Jessica needs her, even if she won't admit it, and the role reversal makes Trish uncomfortable. 

"You disappeared for six months, and when I find you you're cut, bruised, in an outfit even I know you would  _never_ wear, and mumbling something about a Kilgrave. Just tell me what he did, Jess. I can help."

Though Trish already has an idea of what he did, a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Trish knows trauma, she grew up learning to talk in the white space around it and pretend it was never there. Trish knows trauma and she knows men, and Jessica's unwillingness to talk about what happened says more than Jess will. 

Jessica shakes her head. "There's no way in hell I'm telling you."

"Why not?" 

"Because look at you!" And Jess is on her feet, the blanket she was wrapped in hanging like a forlorn cape off her shoulders. "Look at where you live. You've finally made it, you're finally fucking happy and I'll be damned if I'm the one who's going to ruin that for you." 

"You're not going to ruin anything." 

"Right, because I'm not telling you. Glad we're on the same page," Jess says, taking a swig of the whiskey. 

"I'm not that fragile, Jess. Words aren't going to completely decimate me." 

"Really, Patsy?" 

Trish frowns. God. She'd forgotten how fucking difficult Jess can be when she's angry. "Really." 

Jessica sighs, but she sits back down on the couch--well. Flops, more like it. "Why do you want to know? So you can play the martyr, put Bandaids on it and kiss everything better?" 

Trish's face flushes. " _No,"_ she says, too quick. "I'm your--your friend. I just want to help." 

"Or do you want me to get better because you  _hate_ when anything's complicated? Because I'm here on your couch ruining your perfect life and your perfect talk show and your perfect--"

"You're being a real bitch so I  _know_  you're upset," Trish interrupts, trying not to let Jess see how flustered she is. Before Jess can say anything else Trish walks up to her and snatches the bottle out of her hand. "I won't give this back until you talk." 

"You wouldn't."

"I can be a bitch too, see?" Trish says, and she walks over to the sink. "Start talking or I'll pour it down the drain."

"Trish--"

"Seriously." 

Her hand tips the lip of the bottle towards her sink. She watches Jess dig her fingers into the couch, hears the rip of the fabric. 

"Forget it," Jess says. "You want to know so bad? Fine. Fine. I'll tell you." 

Trish upends the bottle anyway.

She's never been good at getting Jess to talk. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part of her still doesn't believe it. These things happened to some other Jessica, because Jessica Jones would never have let this happen to her.
> 
> Trish tells her she didn't let it happen, that Kilgrave made it happen and there's a distinct difference, but still. Jessica is the strong one. If it happened it means she wasn't strong enough to stop it and that means it's her fault.

Slowly, she tells her. In bits and pieces softened by whiskey and Trish's comforting words, she tells her. 

Meeting him. The restaurant, the anniversary, the hotel. The months with him, smiling the entire damn time. What he'd make the servants do if she tried to exercise any form of free will. What he made her do, late at night in hotels she couldn't remember and places she couldn't name. She never says the word, but Trish fills in the missing pieces herself. 

She tells about Reva, in a whisper. The bus crash, his voice yelling at her, the satisfaction and still, the fear when she realized he was dead. 

Part of her still doesn't believe it. These things happened to some other Jessica, because Jessica Jones would never have let this happen to her.

Trish tells her she didn't let it happen, that Kilgrave made it happen and there's a distinct difference, but still. Jessica is the strong one. If it happened it means she wasn't strong enough to stop it and that means it's her fault. 

She thinks, stupidly, that now that she's told Trish it'll go away. 

It doesn't. 

She still feels him on her or hears his voice in her ear, in her head, everygoddamnwhere and so she drinks, drinks, drinks to forget. And sleeps. 

But Trish grows tired of her drinking. Trish's seen addiction, hell, she's lived through it. She knows the signs. So one morning before she goes to work, when Jess is sleeping, Trish takes all the alcohol, even the half drunk bottle of Knob Creek, and gives it to her doorman as an early Christmas present. 

She's not wasteful, Trish. 

When she comes home she's almost not surprised to see Jess has trashed her kitchen looking for it. 

"God _dammit_ ," Jess swears as pots and pans crash out of the cupboard. "Where the fuck--"

"Gave it to the doorman," Trish says lightly as she steps in the apartment.

Jess's eyes blaze. " _All of it?"_

"You need to stop drinking." 

"Drinking helps!" 

"No, it doesn't," Trish says matter-of-factly, but when Jess walks towards her she can't help but flinch. It's ingrained, this habit of waiting for a hit that will never come. 

Instead, Jess just gets in her face, because fuck Trish's personal space and her needs right now. "I need it," she says, and she hates the need in her own voice. "Trish, please, I can't--"

"Can't what?" 

"I still... I still feel him," Jess says finally. "Everywhere, and if I drink, it..."

"You don't have to feel it," Trish fills in. 

This time, Jess looks at her, holds her gaze steady. "Yeah," she says, deflating. "Fuck, Trish, why am I so weak?"

"You're not--"

Jess holds up a hand. "Stop for a second okay? I really don't want to hear it."

"You need to hear it, Jess."

'You've said it a million times, Trish, and it's really not changing anything." 

"That's because you're not listening to me--"

"I am listening! But it doesn't change shit. I still killed a woman, he still killed because of me, and if I had been strong enough to fight back then none of this would have happened!”

Trish stops for a minute. The two stare at each other and it’s like the fights they had when they first moved here, when Trish would do something so like her mother and Jessica would call her out on it, except this time, this time it’s reversed.

And it’s that, Trish thinks, that will help Jessica see how fucked up it is to blame herself. 

“When my mother,” Trish starts, but her mouth is dry. She swallows. “When Dorothy hit me or starved me or made me throw up because I wasn’t skinny enough, pretty enough, happy enough—was any of that my fault?” 

“Trish…”

“Was. It. My. Fault?” 

Jess hangs her head, mumbles like a sullen teenager. “No.” 

“Then it isn’t yours, either. Jess. I know it takes time. I know that better than anyone. But I’m going to tell you it wasn’t your fault every damn day until you believe me, okay?” 

Jess nods. “Okay.” 

But that night Jess wakes up and the room is purple and she throws on her hoodie and leaves the apartment and walks down to the convenience store, buys a cheap bottle of bourbon and drains half of it before she’s back in the apartment. She drinks the rest standing in front of the door, leaves the bottle in the hallway. 

And when she stumbles in and collapses by the couch, Trish is there, whispering _it’s not your fault not your fault_ over and over and over. 

And in the alcohol-induced haze, Jess almost believes her. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She feels like if someone pulls her the wrong direction she’ll unravel, though she’d never admit that to this therapist, let alone Trish.

It takes her thirty minutes to enter the therapist's office.

She can't believe Trish is making her do this, making her go. 

"I think it's a good idea," Trish had said the night before, right after she'd told Jess she made her an appointment with her therapist. "Dr. Sanchez is the best and it'll do you good to talk to him." 

Fuck talking. Fuck Dr. Sanchez. Fuck Trish, for that matter. 

And fuck Trish again for not letting her have a drink before this appointment. 

Jess wipes her sweaty palms on her jeans, clenches her fists. Jesus, this waiting room is nicer than anything Jess has ever owned in her entire life, nicer than Trish's apartment, even, and she swallows. 

The receptionist doesn't even look up. Jess stands by the counter and taps her nails on the marble—Jesus, _marble_ \--and waits to be noticed. When she isn't after five minutes, she coughs, loudly, and the receptionist finally looks up. 

She doesn't even try to hide her disgust at Jessica's outfit. "Can I help you?" she says frostily. 

“I'm here to see Dr. Sanchez, I have an appointment,” Jess says, voice flat. 

The woman looks her up and down. Frosted (dyed) blonde, fake nails, cashmere sweater that cost at least $300. 

Jess knows she’s not a typical client. She’s not a wealthy white woman crying about how her husband took the kids and the summer home on Martha’s Vineyard and how she feels guilty but she has to _cope_ somehow and could he please just prescribe her a Xanax? She isn’t a child star whose mother hit her where the cameras couldn’t see so she took too many Oxy to cope. 

At least Trish had a good reason for being in therapy. What could Jess say—sorry, a British guy compelled me to do some really bad shit and I couldn’t say no? What therapist would listen to that shit? 

Not a therapist Trish is paying $450 an hour for her to see, that’s for sure. 

“Name?” the receptionist says. 

“Jessica Jones.”

She frowns. “I don’t see you in our system.” 

“Trish Walker made the appointment.” 

“I see.” 

Her nails click over the keyboard, and Jessica fidgets with the inside of her pockets, pulling at the fabric until she’s created a small hole. 

“Patricia Walker?” 

“Yup,” Jess says. 

Maybe it’s better they can’t find her. Then she won’t have to go through with this bullshit. 

“Oh, here it is,” the receptionist says, and Jess swears under her breath. “He’s… expecting you.”

“Thanks,” Jess says. 

She resolves herself to the fact that if this doesn’t go well, she can come back and enjoy the satisfaction on the receptionist’s face when she drives her fist through the marble. 

Dr. Sanchez is a short, tan man in his late fifties. His nails are immaculate, and he wears a class ring from some prestigious university on the middle finger of his right hand. 

Jess dislikes him immediately. 

“Miss Jones,” he says. Clipped and efficient neutral Midwest accent. “What brings you here?” 

“Trish made me,” she says. 

“Was Miss Walker concerned about you?” 

“You could say that, yeah,” Jessica says. 

She picks at the hole she made in her jeans. Pulls a thread. Watches it unravel, like it’s that simple. 

Maybe it is. For her. She feels like if someone pulls her the wrong direction she’ll unravel, though she’d never admit that to this therapist, let alone Trish. 

“Did she tell you what happened?” 

Her voice is barely above a whisper.

“No, she left that up to you.” 

Shit. 

Fuck Trish. 

“Miss Jones—”

“Jessica is fine. Miss Jones makes me feel like a housewife.” 

“Jessica. Fine. Would you like to tell me why you’re here?” 

“No.” 

They sit like that for five minutes. Jess looks around. Dr. Sanchez’s degrees hang on the wall—Duke, Harvard, she was right about the prestige—textbooks about PTSD and _feelings_ and, on one shelf, a photo of Dr. Sanchez with a golden retriever. The photo frame next to it is facedown on the shelf.

“No family?” she asks. 

He pulls at his collar. “Just Daisy.”

“The dog?” 

“Mm. What about you, Jessica?” 

Dammit. 

“Just Trish.” 

“You and Miss Walker are close.”

“She’s my best friend. We grew up together.” 

Shit. She didn’t mean to say that. 

“And now you live together.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“I can’t discuss that with you.”

“But you just said—”

Her fists curl. The hole in her jeans grows larger. 

“Would you like glass of water?” he asks, but then he’s standing and he’s over her and _fuck fuck fuck_ she wants to run, bolt, push him— 

Purple. 

Her vision is purple. 

_You want a glass of water, Jessica. You want a glass of wine you want this food Alma prepared for you, you want to wear this outfit you want you want—_

She clenches her fingers in her hair. 

This was such a huge mistake. 

“Jessica. _Jessica_.” 

She opens her eyes. 

Nothing in the room is purple, but Dr. Sanchez is frowning down at her. Not with anger. With concern.

Fuck, she hates concern.

“I’m fine,” she says, standing up too quick and then the room is spinning and she grabs the arm of the chair and sits back down. 

He hands her the glass of water. She sips it, ignores the feeling of him looking at her. 

“Was that your first panic attack?” 

Fuck.

“No.” 

“Are they triggered by any particular event?”

“Aren’t you supposed to tell me that?” 

The doctor rubs his temples. “I suppose we don’t have to talk about it.” 

“Good.” 

She gulps the rest of the glass down like it’s whiskey. The room is too small, the doctor too scrutinizing. 

“Miss Jones—Jessica—I realize this may be difficult. And you don’t want to talk, and I won’t push you. Not today. I would like to give you a way to manage the panic attacks, if you want.” 

She doesn’t want, but she can’t say so. So she nods anyway. 

“Tell me the first street you lived on as a child.”

“Birch Street.”

“The next street over.”

“Higgins Drive.”

“Next street.” 

“Main Street.”

“Next street…” 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trish’s kindness is stifling her. Suffocating her, and she needs to leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short chapter here, the next two will be (hopefully) longer.

She needs to leave. 

She is leaving. 

She knows it the second she gets back from the therapist’s office, muttering street names under her breath the whole way home. She knows it when she sees Trish sitting on the couch nursing a $50 bottle of wine she won’t let Jessica drink. She knows it when she sees the apartment is spotless, her bed made, a few new clothes from Trish laying on the bed, tags cut off and receipts already in the trash so Jess can’t return them. 

Trish’s kindness is stifling her. Suffocating her, and she needs to leave. 

But not yet. She needs money first, a cell phone, somewhere to live. She needs to do this in secret so Trish doesn't find out, because if Trish finds out then she’ll want to help, and God knows Jessica does not want help. 

She remembers, for a minute, escaping Kilgrave. 

But she doesn’t want to think about that anymore. 

 

“How was therapy?” Trish asks.

“Fine,” Jess says, grabbing a soda out of the fridge. Trish swapped all the alcohol for soda. It makes Jessica want to scream, but the caffeine buzz is better than nothing. 

“Did you like Dr. Sanchez?” 

“Mm.” 

Jess makes a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat. 

Trish sighs. “You’re not going to recover if you don’t make any effort.” 

“What’s there to recover from?” Jess says lightly, and takes a giant gulp of the Coke. “He had me recite street names, Trish, I can’t believe you’re paying him for that.” 

What she doesn’t say is the street names helped, that she had a panic attack on the way home so bad it felt like her heart would stop, that she recited all the streets she knew until the highway by her house, it took her so long to calm down. If she says that, Trish will just send her back and Jess doesn’t want her spending the money. 

“Do you want to watch a movie?” Trish asks as Jess sits down on the couch next to her.

“You hate movies.” 

Dorothy had hated movies. Said they were mindless drivel, that Patsy Walker didn’t need to be stupid like all the other little girls. Trish and Jessica had watched them while she was away, snacking on giant bags of chips and bottles of soda, towel over their laps so they didn’t get crumbs on the furniture. 

“I do not,” Trish says defensively. “Look. James Bond is on.” 

“James Bond is a misogynistic prick,” Jess says, but she turns up the volume anyway. When Bond’s girlfriend dies at the end, they both roll their eyes.

“Fridged for man pain,” Trish says. 

“Look how tortured Daniel Craig is, though.” 

“Yeah, because the hot twenty-something he was fucking is dead. Look at his face. That’s not remorse. That’s sadness knowing he won’t find a girl that young for another six months until M sends him on another assignment.” 

Jess laughs so hard she snorts soda out her nose. Trish laughs, and soon they can’t hold it in anymore and Jess falls to the ground, still laughing. 

“You know,” Trish says later, when she’s let Jess have some of the wine and they’ve changed into pajamas. “Just once. Just once I want to see a man die so the woman’s story can continue.” 

“Wouldn’t that be nice,” Jess says.

They know it will never happen. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She thinks of the guy down the hall. Of her work finding these apartments. Of Birch Street and Cobalt Lane and Higgins drive and Kilgrave, always circling back to Kilgrave. 
> 
> Maybe it's time to finally do something with her life.

She leaves late at night. When Trish is asleep, white noise machine on and expensive eye mask covering her face. 

Trish was always a heavy sleeper. Jess was not. Jess woke at every fucking sound, though these past few weeks she's slept better than she ever had.

Maybe it's exhaustion. Maybe it's the illusion of safety, of comfort she feels with Trish. 

But it's a lie, and she can't stay. Not anymore, not if the creeping sensation in her gut, the one that tells her  _he's not dead he's not_ is any indication. 

She's starting to feel like a burden. She's starting to feel like she's keeping Trish from something, and God, she doesn't want to feel like that. She's felt like that enough during her life, ever since she moved in with Perfect Patsy Walker. 

So she packs her stuff in a beat-up duffel bag she found in the back of Trish's closet (still nicer than anything she's ever owned), and she walks away. 

She's been scouring apartment buildings during the day when Trish is doing her talk show. She's beginning to realize she's good at that--scrutinizing, finding details, deals, where the best and cheapest place to live is where Trish won't find her, what kinds of people live there, etc. 

She should put her skills to use, maybe. 

Maybe it's finally time to do something with her life. 

She's already got her keys to the apartment building--a run-down, crappy building she picked specifically because it's the kind of place Trish will never set foot in. 

A kind of place Kilgrave would never set foot in, either, though she hesitates to admit that to herself. 

But she opens the lock--she's been sneaking furniture here, too, during the day; paying the guy down the hall to help her move her mattress in and set it on the floor ("No I don't need a bedframe thank you everything's fine") and a bottle of whiskey is already waiting for her on the bar. 

The guy who'd moved her mattress seemed familiar, though Jess doesn't want to think about that right now. Lots of people seem familiar. Hell's Kitchen isn't as large as she once thought it might be. 

She takes a swig from the bottle, ignores Trish's voice in her head telling her what a bad idea it is, and swallows it down. 

It burns more than it used to.

She'll have to fix that. 

But she sets the bottle down and she goes to lay on her mattress but--

it's not on the floor. It's on a bedframe.

The guy from down the hall, he must have... 

She knows where she recognizes him from. Suddenly, the memory of seeing his face slams into her, though last she saw it was dark and he was bloody so it could be anyone, really--

But she knows it's him. 

She's mumbling the names to herself before she can comprehend what she's doing and fuck, fuck, she's never going to get away from him, is she? Never going to get away from what he did, what  _she_ did. 

She's crying before she can think about it, too. But she wipes her eyes and she takes a swig because Jessica Jones is  _not a crier_ , dammit. 

If Trish were here she'd hug her and tell her it's okay, because Trish is the only person Jess has ever allowed herself to cry in front of. 

But Trish isn't here. And she can't see Trish again, she can't put her at risk if she thinks Kilgrave is still out there, she can't burden her like that. 

She thinks of the guy down the hall. Of her work finding these apartments. Of Birch Street and Cobalt Lane and Higgins drive and Kilgrave, always circling back to Kilgrave. 

Maybe it's time to finally do something with her life.

Maybe it's time to finally become that superhero Trish always wanted her to be. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it for this fic, though I'd always continue if there was interest! Thank you all so much for following and reading. I'm taking prompts/requests on my tumblr and would love to write more fic, so just let me know! Again, thanks for all the support.   
> need-not.tumblr.com


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